If every game I play at the bar or the coffee shop were rated, I'd be better than my rating, because I resign for lots of reasons. The football game started, the line we were playing started to get dull, my opponent played 1.a4. Chess should be played for primarily aesthetic reasons, so anything that muddles that up is more than enough reason to drop some rating points.

This is not usually my style to reply in this manner....

But this is the BIGGEST load of crap I've ever heard!! Chess should be played for aesthetic reasons?!?! Who the hell taught you how to play? I think you've seen American Beauty one too many times.

Chess definitely has artistic aspects..but if you are resigning games because your opponent messed up your beautiful 'chess painting' with a pawn lever...blah, I'm done responding to this.

Thank god, because it was tedious.

I don't have to play for the same reasons you do. If you play junk against me, I have better things to do with my life. If I think we might play a good, interesting game that might turn into something worth remembering, then that's something worth pursuing. Since rating points mean less than nothing to me, I'm free to pursue this goal without reservation, and to get up and walk away if it suits me.

Chess players are weird. Life's too short to suffer through a dull game.

It's far easier to believe people who say they are worse than their rating. It's just that nobody does.

I'm worse than my rating. Or, often I play games a lot worse than my rating. I mean, I can lose OTB games to people rated 800 points below me.

Maybe I have concentration issues. Or maybe it's my alzheimers beginning to take its toll. I'm in my 30s but my grandfather had alzheimers and I have begun to think I'm getting it too :D Maybe it affects people much sooner than assumed, but it's just not as noticeable? Anyhow, my brain is shit compared to 10 years ago.

It's far easier to believe people who say they are worse than their rating. It's just that nobody does.

I'm worse than my rating. Or, often I play games a lot worse than my rating. I mean, I can lose OTB games to people rated 800 points below me.

Maybe I have concentration issues. Or maybe it's my alzheimers beginning to take its toll. I'm in my 30s but my grandfather had alzheimers and I have begun to think I'm getting it too :D Maybe it affects people much sooner than assumed, but it's just not as noticeable? Anyhow, my brain is shit compared to 10 years ago.

As I have written before, if your Chess is taking a downturn, get into coaching, analysing and/or organizing a club perhaps. Another option of which I got into because I do like to compete, is correspondence Chess. Just simply resign yourself that you just don`t have it anymore. Sorry.

Thing is, often people dont play many OTB games. I hadn't played OTB in a loooonnnggg time, but I kept studying and playing chess. When I went back to OTB I was rated 1370? I knew I was much better than this. I played in the lower section and won every game. I went up to 1560 afterward. It was my best tourney but I knew I was going to perform well. So sometimes if you haven't played in a while, or often, things can change. But if you're playing every week, dont tell people you're higher than your rating. XD

Thing is, often people dont play many OTB games. I hadn't played OTB in a loooonnnggg time, but I kept studying and playing chess. When I went back to OTB I was rated 1370? I knew I was much better than this. I played in the lower section and won every game. I went up to 1560 afterward. It was my best tourney but I knew I was going to perform well. So sometimes if you haven't played in a while, or often, things can change. But if you're playing every week, dont tell people you're higher than your rating. XD

You make a fairly valid point that can be applicable to a lot of players. I`m just making my observations, which seem negative, based on my over 40 years of being involved in every aspect of Chess and meeting hundreds of players of all levels. I am 66, by the way.

I can think of one exception. I played in a couple youth tournaments before I graduated, but since comming to college my USCF membership has become expired. I've improved my rating here by about 100 points since I've played in a tourney and so I'd like to think that I would play a bit better than my current OTB rating of under 1000 if I were to become active again.

People obsess over ratings too much. Its simply a number which estimates playing strength. It can be a good estimate or a bad estimate. At the end of the day though... its a number. It has no bearing on the result of the game, if you play better you will win. Its as simple as that.

It should also be noted some regions will have slightly inflated or deflated ratings when compared. This is due to internal leagues for that region or chess club.

For example... At age 18 my rating was around 1400. That year Monmouth Played Cardiff in the WCU Junior Cup. The Cardiff team had at least 200 grading points advantage on every single board. Monmouth won the match 3.5-0.5.

This is the same year I quit chess because my club folded and I missed out on Wales u/18 selection based entirely on my low rating. I quit for 6 years, I didn't play a single competative chess game in this time. When I started to play again my new rating jumped to almost 1900. That is an almost 500 point increase! My grade has remained stable at this level in the last grading list.

I have learned to have a healthy skepticism when it comes to grades since.

I played the first two tournaments badly, because I wasn't used to OTB chess and got a very low rating. In the recent games I often beat opponents who were about double of my rating and had to kind of apologize after the game.

Like 1200 USCF in New York being around 1400 USCF in Idaho or whatever? I can see that happening before the computer age, but with the internet and Amazon widely available to everyone (therefore the "I don't have that book at my local bookstore" excuse doesn't hold water any more) the regional variances in playing strength and rating would have narrowed. Well at least theoretically.

"I quit for 6 years, I didn't play a single competative chess game in this time. When I started to play again my new rating jumped to almost 1900."

That's an exceptional and understandable case, but most people who claim to be better than their rating usually aren't. People fool themselves into thinking they're ready for xyz book that won't help them (maybe I fall into this trap?) before grasping necessary basics.

Even good players may dream or be careless sometimes:

However we all have bad habits we need to weed out if we're to advance.

The bigger the board, the worse I am. Probably because I've played way too many games on my iPhone (probably 90% of all my Blitz games) and I've gotten used to visualizing that way. On my home monitor with the same 5 minute game, I'm slightly worse. I rarely play over-the-board, but when I do I make autrocious blunders I know I'd never normally make. In any case, after thousands of games I know dang well my 5-minute Blitz rating is about 1250. That's just what I am and not surprisingly it's very similar to my actual Blitz rating on Chess.com.

In "on-line" games with ample time to think, I consider myself a 1600 player, which is also similar to my actual rating on Chess.com. Way back in 2010 I somehow achieved an on-line rating of 1750, but I knew I wasn't really that good. I must have been playing a bunch of low rated players. I'm much better now, yet my rating is lower.

It's funny how time messes with some people. I used to play a dude who was rated 2000 in on-line play and could never beat him (obviously). But one day I played him over-the-board and brought along my chess clock. Dang if I didn't beat him 3 out of 4 games. I was stunned. I expected him to wipe the floor with me, but apparently he didn't play nearly as well under pressure.

I'm afraid the start of this thread is nonsense. Given how poorly this site works, it happens very frequently that people are in a winning position, disconnected and then run out of time before they can reconnect. That being the case, it's entirely possible that some players should be better (or worse) than their rating.

As long as the very frequent bugs aren't fixed, the premise "you're as good as your rating" just doesn't hold.

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